Complexity in Social Science - COSI
Summer School 2002

30th June to 6th July, 2002, Chania, Crete.
 Summer School | Agenda 2002 | COSI Website


The COSI Summer School was held in Chania, Crete from the 30th June to the 6th July 2002 and was attended by 40 students from counties all over the world. The aim of this Summer School was to provide an introduction to the basic concepts of complex systems theory and to show how this theory could be used to further our understanding of real-life social situations.


On the right of this page is a collection of papers and presentation slides which were prepared by the Summer School speakers and which were distributed to Summer School attendees in Crete. The papers reflect the current research work of the authors and are intended to give a flavour of some of the current issues concerning complexity in social science.


Dinner at village restaurant near Chania, Crete.



The Speakers

Cristiano Castelfranchi is Professor at the University of Siena in the Division of Artificial Intelligence Cognitive Modelling & Interaction. He is also the Director of the New Cognitive Science Institute of the CNR. His research interests include agent and multi-agent systems (in particular, issues of cooperation, trust and norms), social communication (pragmatics and deception), cognition and social dynamics (emergence and social simulation) and processes in cognitive architecture.

Bernard Pavard is Director of research and head of GRIC- IRIT (Cognitive Engineering Research Group at the Computer Science Research Institute in Toulouse). He is the COSI project coordinator.

Christian Heath is the Director of the Work, Interaction and Technology Research Group at King’s College, London.

Françoise Decortis is a FRNS researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education.

Pasquale Nardone is a member of the Prigogine group and the Solvay Institute on Complex System analysis at the University of Brussels.

Jon Rowe is a researcher at the Evolutionary and Emergent Behaviour Intelligence and Computation Research Group at the University of Birmingham.

Antonio Rizzo is the Director of the MultiMedia Communication laboratory at the University of Siena.

Nicolas Marmaras is the Head of the Ergonomics Unit at the National Technical University of Athens.

Juan Julian Merelo is Head of the GeNeura's research team at the University of Granada.

Helder Coelho is a Professor at LabMac at the Centre for Complexity Sciences at the University of Lisbon.

Introduction

The complexity paradigm is based on a detailed description of the interactions between elements of the system and between the system and its environment, rather than on a purely functional description of building blocks in abstract of its relationship with the external world. When applied to the social sciences this approach allows us to develop new ways of thinking about social processes and complex organisations. Armed with a greater understanding of such situations and with the appropriate tools, we can help to redesign complex socio-organisational systems for greater efficiency and safety.

Aims and Scope

The Summer School aimed to provide an introduction to the essential concepts of complex systems theory, such as non- determinism, emergence, self- organisation, chaos, etc. Using examples from the social sciences, speakers illustrated the practical application of complex systems theory and showed the benefits that such an approach may bring. Techniques for analysing, modelling and simulating complex social systems were presented. Special discussion groups focused on particular aspects of the theory and explored how complex systems theory can complement existing analytical approaches.

Programme Themes

Notions about the theory of Complexity
Distributed system theory and Artificial Life (including Emergence, Self organisation, Evolutionary computation, Agent based systems), Non Linear theories (including chaos, attractors, determinism/ non-tractability).


Examples in the Social Sciences
Economics (Dynamics of Innovation), Safety Critical Systems (Metro Systems & Air Traffic Control), Cognition (Sidebar Conversations in a Space Mission Proposal Team), Education (Children’s Learning Mechanisms), Ergonomics (Metro Systems).


Tools for Social Scientists for Complexity Modelling
Intelligent agents, Genetic algorithms, Neural networks, Cellular automata, Fuzzy logic.


Analysing Data from Complex Work Settings
(Methods, tools, etc.)


Special Discussion Groups
(Emergence & the edge of chaos, activity theory & ethnome-thodology.)


Computer Exercises & Workshops

Summer School papers and presentations





The European Commission Community Research, Fifth Framework Programme The European Union Flag

COSI is a research training network funded by the
European Commission under Framework 5 (DG XII TMR).

RTN Contract Number HPRN-CT-2000-00068.

Practical Information

Who applied

The Summer School was intended for doctoral students and post- doctoral researchers from all disciplines who are interested in understanding the fundamental concepts of complex systems theory and its practical application in the social sciences. Applicants from all countries were welcome. Numbers were limited so applicants were asked to apply as soon as possible.

Location

The Summer School was held at the Technical University of Crete at Chania. Chania lies on the northwest coastline of Crete between the Aegean Sea and the slopes of the White Mountains.

Costs

The Summer School was subsidized, however, we asked attendees to pay a contribution of 100 Euros for tuition, materials, lunches and refreshments. Attendees also paid for their own travel and accommodation. For accommodation, we suggested the Halepa Hotel. http://www.grecian.net/Halepa/ where we reserved a number of rooms. Alternatively, there was the Irida Hotel (tel 0821 51888, 50444) where we also reserved rooms.

Further Information

We provided an on-line registration form, alternatively applicantions could be made directly to Chantal Morand (the COSI network administrator) morand@irit.fr